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The 10 Best Quotes from our Mobile Retail Summit

Yesterday was our Mobile Marketing Retail Summit, where we brought together a wide variety of retail brands with key thought leaders from the mobile marketing world to explore and discuss the future of mobile marketing, and how the latest technology can be used to engage consumers.

With more than half of all online retail revenues coming from mobile devices, its never been more important to ensure the mobile is well integrated into your marketing strategy. Marketers can no longer rely on an app or a mobile website; today's consumers are demanding a seamless omnichannel experience that treats them as individuals. Our Summit gave brands an opportunity to connect with ad tech providers, industry experts and their peers to ask questions, challenge assumptions and hear about some of the latest developments and cutting-edge insights.

If you weren't able to make it to the Summit, you missed out on some fantastic guidance from leading industry figures, but you can still access some of the gems of wisdom here, with our top 10 quotes from the day.

“The battlefield is going to be in how we treat our customers. There's going to be technology, and there's going to be service, but there'll always be customers.”Jat Sahi, digital lead, retail and hospitality for EMEA, Fujitsu

Our day was kicked off by Jat Sahi of Fujitsu, who explored how mobile and digital was disrupting not just traditional working practices, but entire sectors and business models, and what retailers can do to keep pace with the speed of change.

"We're competing with online, and customers don't differentiate between that. It's a seamless journey to purchase for them, but for us, it's more important they're making that purchase in a physical place."Deborah Owen-Ellis Clark, head of retail marketing, British Land

In her presentation, Deborah Owen-Ellis Clark of property firm British Land presented a pilot scheme the company carried out using AR to drive footfall and improve customer engagement at their retail locations, and how the portfolio-wide scheme went from conception to execution in just eight weeks.

"Games found business models that weren't there before – in-app advertising, in-app purchases. They pioneered the way mobile could generate revenues."Ilja Goossens, sales director for EMEA, Tune

Ilja Goossens from Tune gave us a brief history of the mobile age, walking attendees through how our interactions with smartphones have changed, and how the evolving market has affected to battle to acquire high quality users that will return to spend, again and again.

"If you've done your homework, and you have the right reasons why the company should go in a direction, and you have the technology, I've never heard anyone say 'No' to an idea just because mobile is involved. There are still siloes, but I think we've got better at breaking them down. If you look at the things we're using mobile for now, we've already com a long way, but consumer expectations keep rising."Jen Brown, director of marketing for EMEA, Tealium

During our closing panel debate, Jen Brown of Tealium tackled the question of how mobile marketers can sell the idea of the omnichannel customer experience to stakeholders who may be stuck in siloed ways of thinking, and highlighted the importance of data in proving the strength of mobile.

"One of the biggest issues for customers doing an online grocery shop for the first time is speed, and that's a major pain point for us and them. Without any existing customer data to work from, the process can take a lot longer, and some customers can be put off by that, so making that journey smoother and faster is a priority for us."Alastair Preacher, customer director for new venture and head of digital customer, Tesco

During our roundtable sessions, Alastair Preacher, one of the delegates from Tesco, rose the issue of onboarding customers into apps, and how important it is to provide a seamless customer experience from the word 'Go' when it comes to ensuring long-term retention.

"The web provides us with loads of publicly available data that can inform marketing decisions. We went out and sourced information from 8m posts from BabyCentre to find out what mums are thinking about at every different step of their pregnancy and beyond."Ashley Kenerson, head of data analysis, strategy and insight, DigitasLBi

Ashley Kenerson from DigitasLBi spoke about the power of individual-level omnichannel data, and how it can shift our targeting from channel-based to person-based, identifying the previously invisible signals of human behaviour and making them actionable.

"We talk about mobile as the key to retail but it's not just about the device. The real truth is that whatever you're using, whether it's your desktop or actually walking into a store, mobile is what is stitching it all together."Iain Murphy, director of operations & customer success, Tealium

During his presentation, Iain Murphy from Tealium described how mobile has transformed in the past few years from simply smartphones to encompass a whole range of technologies, from tablets and the connected car, to beacons and the smart home, and how all these data points can help create a single customer view across online and in-store.

"Big companies don't tend to build the expertise in-house. You need experts in-house who understand mobile strategy before you reach out to external companies. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, so if someone's telling you something is a good idea, you need to know whether or not they're accurate."Ilja Goossens, sales director for EMEA, Tune

During our panel debate, Ilja Goossens from Tune spoke about the importance of brands developing their own mobile expertise, rather than relying on contractors and third parties to steer them towards a mobile-first attitude.

"People often won't download an app to make their first purchase, and that becomes an extra friction point for getting people to try the service, so we ensure our mobile web site is capable of delivering the experience they want. Then we can use the mobile site and our CRM database to get people to transition to the app at a later date."Aron Gelbard, co-founder and CEO, Bloom & Wild

Our editor David Murphy hosted a fireside chat with Aron Gelbard, CEO of Bloom & Wild, who spoke about the way the company has tailored every aspect of its customer experience to the mobile-first age of retail, and how that strategy has led to both innovation and great success.

"If you've got a two star rating for your app in the app store, 15 per cent of people who visit that page will end up downloading it. Increase that to a five star rating, and that figure becomes 95 per cent.Mick Rigby, CEO, Yodel Mobile

For his presentation, Mick Rigby, CEO of Yodel Mobile, broke down some of the preconceptions that exist in app marketing, and how firms can reap the rewards of taking a few simple steps to ensure they're getting the basics right.

If you're interested in hearing these sorts of insights into a variety of verticals and technology areas, check out our 2017 Summits site, with events covering Finance, Programmatic, the Connected Consumer and more. Click here to find out more.